As such, Fordham University in London will be offering a series of virtual lectures and classes next semester that will reflect both traditional and contemporary aspects of the city, the U.K., and Europe, said Mark Simmons, interim head and director of academic affairs there. The offerings will be available to all full-time Fordham undergraduates.

“We will be creating an immersive experience, a multidisciplinary approach to what London is about today, one that ranges from subjects on gender and identity in modern Britain to a Bollywood take on Shakespeare to parallels of Brexit in U.S. politics,” he said.

The array of 3-credit courses includes several English courses that delve into the Romantics as well as the Modernists; a history course on 20th-century Europe; a political science course on European politics; and business courses on ethics, legal frameworks, and global investments, as well as a marketing class on global sustainability. There will be virtual tours of the city’s modern and contemporary architecture, and another tour that looks back at the Victorian era. Virtual internships will continue to be on offer next semester.

In addition, two learning series will give students a taste of what Fordham London has to offer.

A one-credit weekly seminar titled Britain Today will feature an ensemble Fordham London faculty on subjects that range from modern UK history and government, media’s role in the U.K., London’s arts and theater scene, the landscape of religion in today’s Britain, and London’s role as a world financial capital.

Simmons said that the seminar provides a sampling of courses on offer at Fordham London but would be interesting to others as well.

“For students who wanted to learn about London this would give you a flavor of British society,” said Simons.

The London Business Speaker Series is a certificate program curated by Meghann L. Drury-Grogan, Ph.D., associate professor of communication and media management at the Gabelli School of Business. The program will run weekly from Feb. 8, to be held every Thursday around lunchtime in New York. The series will tap into established Gabelli School partnerships, including the London offices of Ernst and Young, Bloomberg, and Accenture.

“The program will showcase the relationships we’ve been able to build here in London with various alumni and other established ties that will give students a global experience,” she said. “There will be a plethora of different perspectives that give students who can’t study abroad, for whatever the reason, a chance to learn about the U.K. Now that we have the opportunity of putting on these virtual events, we hope to continue this into the future.”

Geoff Snell, who teaches the architecture courses, said he plans to prerecord his tours during daylight hours and deliver the lectures live.

“When we had to go live this past spring we learned what worked and what didn’t work,” timing-wise, he said. “We want everyone to be engaged with the material.”

Snell’s course, like those in all the disciplines, includes a healthy dose of the contemporary juxtaposed with the modern. The skyscrapers of London’s business district, such as the Shard and the Walkie Talkie, are featured alongside St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. Pancreas Station, and other Victorian masterpieces.

“We’ll be jumping from art deco to Christopher Wren to the Gherkin, all different styles, but like so much else in London, every architectural style has something to do with what went before,” he said. 

Students should register for classes by Dec. 4; those who had applied to study abroad for the Spring 2021 semester have priority for registration.

Two days later, humanitarian aid workers, designers, and architects from around the world gathered at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus to talk about what can be done to help them.

Design for Humanity Summit II: Design in the Time of Displacement, a day-long summit sponsored by Fordham’s Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs, is the second design summit of its kind, following an inaugural gathering last June. The conference explored how the intersection between design and humanitarian action can compel a more dignified, inclusive, and sustainable humanitarian response.

In a keynote address, Amy Goodman, host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, told attendees that the media can be the greatest force for peace on earth. It has the capacity to spotlight people affected by wars and climate change-driven weather events, she said, citing the work of activists such as those who protested the installation of an oil pipeline at Standing Rock, North Dakota.

“The way the media talks about pro-democracy movements is, it’s for other countries, because we’ve achieved democracy in the United States,” she said.

“But you never really achieve democracy. You have to fight for it every single day, and that’s what these human rights groups do. That’s why it’s critical we have a media that provides a platform for people like all of you, who are the experts in your areas, rather than pundits we get on all of the networks, who know so little about so much.”

Elevate Their Voices

Democracy Now! has covered many stories related to refugees recently, she said, including one about a lawyer representing the Department of Justice who argued before Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the administration was not required to provide detained children with soap, toothbrushes, and blankets. Less known, she said, are stories such as that of Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother of four from Mexico who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years but has been recently living in a church in Denver to avoid deportation.

“To be able to hear their voices, that’s what will change the world. To go to where the silence is. Working with refugees around the world, it’s not often silent where you are, but for the corporate media, it is. Those voices do not hit the media radar screen. And it’s our job to elevate them,” she said.

“These are the voices that will save all our humanity.”

In addition to workshops, Friday’s summit, a partnership between the IIHA and the International Organization for Migration, also featured talks by Argentina Szabados, regional director, IOM in South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, and Richard Blewitt, head of delegation and permanent observer of the Delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to the United Nations.

Settlement Camps No Longer Temporary

Szabados said there is cause for both optimism and pessimism in the field. On the plus side, the tools for collecting and analyzing data collection have never been more easily obtained. On the other hand, she noted, no one believes anymore there is anything temporary about settlements for displaced individuals. One camp on the India/Bangladesh border, she noted, has been open for 70 years. Therefore, it is important to consider what it means for such places to be not just shelters, but “homes.”

“The dwelling places we provide ought not be ‘just good enough’ to keep people alive in a miserable twilight of half-existence. They must also give people an opportunity to develop, to be healthy, to learn,” she said.

Blewitt said one of the lessons that has become abundantly clear when it comes to providing shelter to vulnerable populations is that aid groups should be focused on the process that leads to shelter construction, not just the finished product.  People who have been displaced should be offered a chance to help rebuild their own community.

“When we’re looking at shelter, non-specialists often think we should build something by ourselves. And this is understandable, but it might hamper a future resilience agenda,” he said.

“We want to work very much with populations that are affected, and enable them to look at incremental expansion and improvement of their shelter options, and [let them know]that they are in the driving seat, not us.”

This has the effect of bringing down costs, he said, and also allows countries to take pride in being able to care for its citizens, even if what’s built is not perfect.

“Sometimes humanitarians kind of believe they’re fixing everything, but actually that’s not the reality, he said, noting that globally, the amount of money sent to countries via remittances dwarfs official development aid.

“People are finding ways.”

Video of the morning’s session can be viewed here.
Video of the afternoon’s session can be viewed here.

The summit, a partnership between the IIHA and the International Organization for Migration, explored how the intersection between design and humanitarian action can compel a more dignified, inclusive, and sustainable humanitarian response.

More than 40 presenters from the design, humanitarian, and academic communities, as well as the private sector, presented at panels or breakout sessions. An estimated 300 participants, from as far away as Europe and Asia, took part in the conference.

A Key Research Area

“Design for humanity is one of five key research areas for the Institute, and we believe it will have an impact on current thinking and practices of the humanitarian sector,” said IIHA Executive Director Brendan Cahill in his opening remarks.

“We seek to galvanize the diverse expertise of those working at this intersection through a multi-year Design for Humanity Initiative and Lab, which will include future events, research, publications, and collaborative projects.”

In his keynote session, Randy Fiser, CEO of the American Society of Interior Designers, kicked off the morning with a call to explore potential partnerships and identity gaps. To give a sense of how such partnerships between design, community, and government can work, he pointed to Regent Park, a 69-acre neighborhood in Toronto that is currently being redeveloped.

“As we know, when redevelopment takes place in neighborhoods, there is an opportunity to push out communities that were there to begin with and to displace them,” he said.

“Regent Park took a very critical look at how they could not only empower and improve the lives of the people there and add value, but also incorporate 25,000 Syrian refugees into the community,” he said.

Sustainability, health, and wellness, and resiliency should always be key dimensions of any design, he said. There are also opportunities to learn from failures, such as the Superdome, which became a shelter in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

“We knew New Orleans was susceptible to hurricanes. We knew that people would shelter in the Superdome at some point. And yet it wasn’t designed in a way to handle the volume of people that were there. We didn’t prepare, and so what happened was another cataclysmic event,” he said.

“People deserve better from us.”

The Role of Architects

His sentiment was echoed in the day’s first panel, “From Public Interest Design to Humanitarian Design: How Design Compels an Inclusive Humanitarian Response.” Sean Anderson, associate curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, began by sharing pictures of squalid living facilities for refugees that Australia had established on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and in the nation of Nauru in Micronesia, and ended with images of tents in Southern Texas that currently house refugees who have crossed over from Mexico.

“This is not architecture, and this is not design, yet it is, and there are people who are responsible for building, maintaining and preserving these systems that are happening right now on our southern border,” he said, imploring everyone to oppose them.

Another panelist, Carmen Mendoza Arroyo, Ph.D., made an impassioned plea for architects to resist the temptation to work with those who put up tent cities for migrants. It benefits no one, it creates ghettos, and it perpetuates “ unacceptable policies,” she said.

Arroyo, who is director and master of international cooperation sustainable emergency architecture at the Universrstat Internacional de Catalunya School of Architecture, suggested instead efforts to resettle refugees and migrants in cities. In response to the influx of refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea, Barcelona is attempting to do rehabilitate abandoned buildings to house them.

Sergio Palleroni, professor and director of the Center for Public Interest Design at Portland State University, showed off the Partners On Dwelling (POD) initiative that the city of Portland, Oregon has undertaken to tackle homelessness. Micro houses measuring just 225 square feet have been assembled for $2,600 each and clustered together in groups of a dozen or so on formerly abandoned land. The three clusters, or “villages,” that they have created have been invaluable tools for helping people escape homelessness.

Palleroni noted that in the past, he has sent his students to study abroad to get a better sense of the world outside the United States’ borders. But extreme poverty and hopelessness is here as well.

“To me, the most difficult thing that I see [globally]is a kind of sense that people are losing faith in institutions and political processes that we have,” he said.

“The money is there to make the changes, we just need a consensus and an ability to come together to support them.”

That rezoning proved fodder for students taking professor Colin Cathcart’s Designing the City class.

Cathcart, an associate professor of architecture, charged his students to dream up mixed uses for the neighborhood at the doorstep of Fordham’s Bronx campus. Students were assigned streets, and as part of their research they spent dozens of hours observing the daily life in their areas.

They also interviewed students from the nearby Theodore Roosevelt High School. They talked to John Sanchez and S. W. Mejia, the district manager and the chair of the land use committee for Community Board 6, respectively, as well as officials from the Bronx Office of the NYC Department of City Planning.

Lastly, they interviewed Sal Natale Sr., owner of Pugsley’s.

What emerged was a variety of views on how to “bring more eyes onto the street” and more mixed use to the area. The ideas were designed to give voice to concerns of nearby residents as well as Fordham students, said those who presented their findings on Dec. 13.

“We all see this area as a transition space between Fordham and the greater Belmont community,” said Gabelli School of Business senior Corrine Logan. “One of the things we thought was important, in addition to housing and cultural transition spaces, was to have academic transition space where Fordham students and local high school students can work together.”

Ultimately, the students saw the potential for a greater role for the University within the surrounding community. Among their suggestions were:

—  creating labs for peer-to-peer educational opportunities that could build on preexisting programs and partnerships, such as the Project True partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the idea of opening membership to the community in the University’s St. Rose’s CSA food cooperative.

—  increasing intellectual opportunities in off-site University-owned properties in the area for the surrounding Bronx community.

Consistently, the student’s final plans suggested a more open campus along 191^st Street. Celina McCall, a junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, argued that more gate openings near the 191^st Street corridor would increase foot traffic from Fordham Road and thus lead to greater safety along the street. She and her design partner Sean Kraemer, a freshman in the School for Professional and Continuing Studies, proposed zoning the street for small businesses and affordable housing with a certain percentage set aside for long-term Bronx residents.

“Even though we live in the same community we don’t interact with each other enough,” said McCall. “We can address that aesthetically as well as practically, by marrying what Fordham looks like inside and the Bronx looks like outside.”

Cathcart plans to present the findings to the community board and planning representatives next semester.

That was the instruction for a group of students enrolled in the course Sustainable New York, as they embarked on July 14 for a 90-minute boat tour of the city’s Newtown Creek.

The 3.5-mile waterway that separates Brooklyn from Queens is one of several waterways the group visited, along with the Bronx River and the Gowanus Canal. Like the Gowanus, the Newtown Creek is surrounded by heavy industry. It has suffered mightily as a result, and was declared a Federal Superfund site in 2010.

But, unlike other trips where the class observed waterways from dry land, this one involved signing waivers, donning life jackets, and carefully stepping into a 10-person canoe.

“Once you’re on the water, you understand how it connects places and how each waterway has its own personality,” said course instructor Amanda Schachter, adjunct professor of architecture. “It’s not just something pretty that you look at from afar. In New York, we’ve gotten to the point where we now look toward the water [view], and not just inwards. I think the third stage is being on the water and looking back at the land.”

Because of its pollution, the creek is one of many areas of the city where persons aren’t encouraged to go, she said, but “those are the places where we need to find out what’s going on.”

Students saw up close just how much the creek plays a vital part in the functioning of New York City. After departing the North Brooklyn Boat Club’s dock, organizers got word that the MV Hunts Point, a 290-foot-long sludge boat that transports organic waste material from the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant to Ward Island, would be heading their way.

Students paddled toward the bulkhead on the north side of the canal, where they waited for the ship. As it lumbered past, the water displaced by the ship—one of three specifically designed to safely pass below the Pulaski Bridge at high tide—pushed the canoe ever so slightly back up the creek.

During the trip, the canoe passed a crane busily loading squashed cars onto a barge, a conveyor belt delivering crushed concrete into another barge, an oil depot, and other industrial businesses. Amanda Molina, a visiting student who grew up in Riverdale, thought she’d be learning about urban gardening and solar panels, but said she liked the focus on the water.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a canoe before, so it was quite a unique experience,” she said. “It was eye opening being surrounded by the garbage facilities and petroleum plant.

“It makes me take a step back and think about how much I’m consuming, and how much of a better job I can do [to conserve].”

Jane Skapek, a rising senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) majoring in visual arts, said she expects that her final project on the Bronx River will be useful for her career, as it’s centered on how visual arts aids in data presentation. The Chicago native said she misses water because she hardly ever sees it here, even though Manhattan is an island.

“I was surprised at how actively industrial it was. You hear about it, but it’s different to see a boat with a 15-foot draft go by,” she said.

Cameron Kummer, an FCRH rising senior majoring in German and history, likewise hailed from a post-industrial city, Pittsburgh. He marveled at how fast his oar disappeared in the murky water when he paddled, and he said he was “pleasantly surprised” at what little stench there was on the creek.

“Those [Pittsburgh] rivers used to be polluted too, back in the day,” he said. “We had all these steel mills, and they left. Now, the rivers are wonderful places to be.”

“I’d like to see that for some of these New York waterways.”
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